The "overwhelming majority" of patients who have recovered from coronavirus have been found to produce antibodies - but it is too early to say if they guarantee immunity, England's deputy chief medical officer has said.

Prof Jonathan Van-Tam told the daily Downing Street briefing that "we just haven't had this disease around on the planet in humans for long enough" to know whether those who had recovered were immune.

He said antibodies produced in response to other human coronaviruses "don't persist necessarily for years and years and years", although it is unknown what would happen in the case of COVID-19.

Prof. Jonathan Van-Tam says the overwhelming majority of patients who have had #COVID19 have gained antibodies - "which is a good news thing."

But he adds there is no clear answer yet on whether antibodies protect from further infections.

Image:Matt Hancock has donated plasma to a clinical trial in the hope of finding a vaccine

He said there were "very positive" indications about a new antibody test from Swiss company Roche and the government was in discussions with the firm "about a very large-scale roll-out of antibody testing".

But the health secretary acknowledged there had been problems with antibody testing before, having previously said the UK would order 17.5 million home testing kits only to find they did not work.

"There has been false hope before in antibody testing so we will make announcements when we are absolutely ready," Mr Hancock said.

Earlier on Monday it was revealed scientists have discovered an antibody which prevents the coronavirus from infecting human cells in "groundbreaking research".

Scientists from Utrecht University in the Netherlands have identified a potential method of neutralising COVID-19 which could lead to the development of new treatments.

They discovered that an antibody which prevents the SARS virus from infecting human cells could also block the novel coronavirus from infecting human cells too, according a peer reviewed study in the journal Nature Communications.